Unshielded
by victoriacorn
Summary: Hydra has the TARDIS but they need Clara to open the door. Under the influence of an experimental drug Clara calls out for help. The only ones who can hear her are the Doctor, the Doctor and a man named Phil. Chapter 4 is up! Clara learns Phil might have secrets of his own. Phil learns of Hydra's involvement and the Doctor reveals that this isn't his first rodeo.
1. Chapter 1

She remembered reaching for her helmet, her fingers brushing over the smooth, hard plastic and then darkness. Nothing. Almost like a switch had been flipped and all the lights in her world just went out. Clara had fallen unconscious before. She knew the sensation of reality slipping away and being unable to hold on. This time was different. One moment she was about to climb onto her bike and the next she opened her eyes to a stark room, devoid of anything but the chair she was sitting in and one other impossible object.

The TARDIS. It stood silently almost two meters away from her, positioned just right so that it would be the first thing she would see. It was still and uninviting, almost … angry. Every inch of it seemed to tell her to stay away. Clara tore her eyes away from it and looked down at her chair. She was not strapped into it but she saw that the straps hung from the metal arms that her own hands laid on lightly. This chair had been constructed for the sole purpose of holding someone still against their will. She swallowed hard, a wave of unease rising through her. Even though she was not confined to its grip now, she knew that it was only a matter of time.

The Doctor did not bring her here. Though grumpy and difficult in this latest incarnation, he was not deliberately cruel. She was not here for the Doctor. She was here because of him. Was he alright? Did he know she was here? Slowly she rose from the chair and approached the TARDIS. Her hand reached to touch its wooden surface.

A voice erupted from the silence behind her. "Clara Oswald, you are not the first person I have taken captive." The level of malevolence in the woman's voice paralyzed her. Clara couldn't move. She could not turn around. "I have had a great deal of experience in identifying those who will be of use to me, obtaining them and extracting what I need." The woman approached, the click of her heels echoing in the empty room, her voice growing louder as she drew closer.

Clara was frozen with fear as she felt the woman stop directly behind her. "Everyone upon opening their eyes and discovering their fate says the same thing." The woman spoke now in nearly a whisper close enough that Clara could feel her breath on the back of her neck. "Every time. Every instant. Everyone until you. 'What do you want from me?' You didn't ask me that, Clara, and I think I know why." The woman stepped into Clara's view. She was tall and elegant. Her suit was expensive, Italian and very feminine. Her blonde hair was swept up in a severe coiffure and her lineless face made it difficult to determine her age. Her ice blue eyes held nothing but malice as she spoke. "You already know. You know exactly what I want from you."

Clara swallowed hard before finding her voice. "You won't get it," she said in a tone too small to be defiant. She thought of all of the times when the Doctor had frightened her, robbed her of hope, broken her heart. Her mind shot her the image of a grated door falling between them as her left her behind, the words, 'Sorry, too slow,' echoing in her ears. She had to believe that she could not be used against him. She had to believe that he wouldn't come for her. "You can do what you want to me. It won't matter. He's left me before."

The woman laughed softly as if explaining something to a small child. "You don't understand. He's not going anywhere." She stepped towards the TARDIS but would not reach for it as if her touch was forbidden. She looked to its mass with something akin to desire. "I have spent the better part of a decade amassing the technology to build this tachyon cage. Your beloved Doctor and his fathomless machine are immobilized in a single moment in time and space." The woman turned on Clara now, her wickedly beautiful face contorting into something fearsome. "I don't need to back him into a corner by threatening you. I don't need to force his hand. His hand is forced. He is trapped. All I need for you to do is open the door. "

Clara tried to fill her mind with dark thoughts, something, anything that would make her seem indifferent but she couldn't. Trapped. The Doctor was trapped. She couldn't see him. She didn't know for sure. Before she could clamp her lips shut and be silent, the question spilled out, "Is he alright?"

The woman's cold voice whispered right at her ear. "Open the door and find out."

Clara pulled back her hand, only now realizing that she had reached for the TARDIS' door. That was close, ridiculously so. She folded her arms around herself keeping them tightly confined from acting on their own.

"He's become Schrödinger's cat," the woman remarked with amusement. "Theoretically alive and dead at the same time." She laid her hands on Clara's shoulders to give her a literal push to do what she wanted. "Only you can release him from this uncertainty."

Without conscious thought, Clara untwined her arms and reached for the TARDIS again. Watching herself act with so little thought filled her with a horrifying chill. "No, no, no," she cried. She collapsed in upon herself, covering her face with her hands. "What's wrong with me?"

"Don't worry," the woman said without a hint of reassurance. "While you were unconscious I administered a drug to you." Clara could almost sense the twitch of a smile in the cold voice. "Experimental, of course."

All reason began to slip away then and Clara didn't even try to hold on. The woman continued to speak of the drug she feared would bring her failure. "The first dosage was merely in aerosol form." Hands wrapped around Clara's upper arms, pulling her body up and back. She was only barely aware that she moving away from the TARDIS. "I have found that this substance can make its victim quite suggestible." Despair seeped into what was left of her rational thoughts as the hands pulled and then pushed her into the chair she had first awoken in. "You came amazingly close to achieving your goal with just a breath of the chemical. Imagine what you will do when it is injected directly into your blood stream." The chair's straps came into play then and Clara felt a needle slide almost effortlessly into her arm. She wanted to scream but she had to hold onto what sanity she could. She didn't know if the Doctor was alive, if he could hear her. She wouldn't scream for him. She was all that stood between the evil woman with the cold voice and him and the power that the TARDIS could bring. All she had to do was keep herself from opening a door.

AOSDW AOSDW AOSDW

Platform One. The year 5.5/Apple/26.

The Doctor had wanted to impress her. That was a fact he wouldn't admit to himself. Rose Tyler was young and pretty and she had a mind that was open to so much possibility. He needed someone, a companion but he did not understand how he had come to that conclusion. It was almost as if he had seen how much better he could be if he had someone with him.

He glanced down at the psychic paper he had used in place of an invitation. For a moment, so fleeting he nearly missed it, a message appeared and just as quickly vanished.

'I don't know where I am.'

He furrowed his brow slightly as he regarded the message.

"He's blue," Rose commented beside him. Her statement about the greeter had elements of confusion, and fear and just a tiny proportion of wonder.

He tucked the psychic paper back into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. The message could wait.

He needed Rose. He wasn't sure why but he was sure that watching her experience the universe through her fresh eyes was something he couldn't miss.

AOSDW AOSDW AOSDW

The Library

Dr. River Song had picked up her TARDIS blue diary and turned away from him. The Doctor knew he had pushed too far but reaching for the book with her history and his future had been an impulse he could not suppress. Frustrated with his situation, his escalating lack of control, he followed her. Forcing calm into his voice, he said, "You used the psychic paper to contact me."

She looked up at him, still reeling from some inner turmoil. "Yes, I did and it worked," she replied trying to lessen the sting in her voice. "You came."

The Doctor reached into his inside pocket for his neatly sleeved psychic paper. "Have you done that before?"

Her brow furrowed slightly as she realized their interaction had shifted gears. "Never so early in your life," she stated then added, "Why do you ask?"

The Doctor flipped the psychic paper open and then closed it again. "I've gotten a message," he said quietly. He opened the paper again, staring at it thoughtfully. "I've never been able to figure out where it came from." He closed it again and met her gaze. "Whenever I use my psychic paper, it shows up and then disappears."

River Song realized at that moment that this was the first time he had told anyone about this. Instinctively she reached for his hand. "What does it say?" she asked.

"'I don't know where I am,'" he said.

River could see his worry. Not sudden. He had had this worry for a long time. A disembodied voice calling out for help. How could he resist? "That's really why you came, isn't it?" she asked, open with realization. "You were hoping that I was the one who had sent that message."

The Doctor looked down at their hands, strangely entwined, almost out of habit, like his body was remembering forward. She caught the direction of his gaze and smiled. "Please, I'm not about to get jealous," she said softly. "I called for you. You came. I don't care for your reason why."

She spoke with affection and patience and understanding but the lie was evident. She was hurt that he didn't originally come for her. An apology crossed his mind but not his lips as he carefully pulled his hand from hers. He opened the psychic paper again and frowned at it. "Sometimes there is a different message," he said and held up the sleeved paper for River to see as well.

In small, gentle strokes, written with a shaking, frightened hand were the words : 'Did I open the door?'

River's frown matched his. "What door?"

The Doctor tucked the psychic paper back into his coat pocket. "I wish I knew."

AOSDW AOSDW AOSDW

The Playground – Present Day

The metal grating shuddered beneath his feet as the remaining engines struggled to keep the helicarrier aloft with the loss of the first engine. Coulson had reached the armory to retrieve a weapon. They had come under attack. His orders were to secure Loki from escape. He scanned the available weapons, looking for the specific one that he wanted. The prototype gleamed like a beacon. The only one that might, just might hold up against a Norse god. He reached for it.

"I don't know where I am…"

He whipped around and faced an empty corridor. It was a woman's voice, soft and plaintive, calling to him. "Hello…?" he called back.

"I don't know where I am," she called again. She was lost.

Leaving the weapon cache behind he walked back the way he came. "I'm coming!" he called to her. He strained to hear her call again, hoping to find a direction to follow, to find her.

"I don't know where I am."

Ahead, to the right. The corridor branched off. He followed it, quickening his pace. "I'm coming!"

"I don't know where I am." The desperation in her voice was growing.

"I'm coming!" A door slammed shut in front of him. He brought his hand up to open his way.

A hand closed around his wrist. He jerked back, bringing his free hand up in a fist. His eyes flew open and he froze. Dark brown eyes locked with his. He had been dreaming.

"May," he sighed, embarrassed at having her so close to him. "How long have you been watching me sleep?"

She released her hold on him as concern etched more deeply onto her face. "Only tonight," she replied in the hushed tone of nighttime talking.

Coulson pulled himself up to a sitting position and rubbed his hands over his face. "I'm not sure this is what Fury meant when he said to keep an eye on me," he said wearily.

Melinda May reached for a bottle of water sitting on the bedside table. "You were calling out in your sleep," she explained. She deftly unscrewed the cap and handed him the opened bottle. "Where were you?"

He thought back to the dream that seemed so real that he could remember the feeling of the walls on his hands, the sound of his footsteps echoing off the corridor. He looked away as the realness attempted to pull him back. "The helicarrier," he admitted quietly.

"That's understandable," May said evenly as she met his eyes. "Who were you looking for?"

Coulson turned away, pulling his legs out of the bed and placing his feet on the floor. He wanted to seem natural without the tension and apprehension he was sure she could sense from him. "How could you tell I was looking for someone?" he asked.

May leaned across his bed towards him, knowing full well the discomfort her proximity was bringing him. A part of her wanted to tease him for it but a much more significant part only wanted to put him at ease as he stood to lengthen the distance between them. "You kept saying 'I'm coming'," she said to his back.

"Oh," he sighed with realization and a renewed embarrassment at having been caught talking in his sleep. "I heard a woman's voice—scared," he explained. "She was saying 'I don't know where I am'."

May straightened and stood as she considered the source of the voice. "Maybe it was Romanov," she offered, not believing there was a possibility that the Black Widow would ever sound scared and mean it. "About the time you were facing Loki, she was engaged with Dr. Banner."

"No, it wasn't Romanov," he said quietly.

May furrowed her brow and stepped closer to him. She was bothered by the certainty of his answer and she wondered briefly if he knew more than he was telling her. "How can you be sure?" she asked.

Coulson turned and faced her. All discomfort had vanished replaced by worry and concern for something he couldn't quite name. "The woman in my dream was British."


	2. Chapter 2

Donna Noble spread her arms wide across the railing, leaning her back against it in dramatic fashion. "After that we need to do something relaxing," she announced. She lifted her head, hoping to catch the Doctor's eye but his attention was focused entirely on the control levers of the T.A.R.D.I.S. She walked to the opposite side of the console. "I'm sure you can think of someplace where we can be pampered, lie back and do nothing."

The Doctor glanced at her, a momentary meeting of their eyes but she could not miss the flash of guilt. "I'm sorry, Donna," he said.

She furrowed her brow. She could tell that he wasn't being entirely honest with her, again. What she couldn't figure out was if he wasn't lying to himself as well. "Are you telling me that you can't think of anyplace like that?" she pressed.

Completely focused on the steady thrum of the center console he admitted, "Oh, I can think of dozens of places that would be just what you want." He stopped then before he could begin listing them and then stepped back from the console and slipped his hands into his coat pockets. He looked at her now, his eyes boring into her with withering intensity. "But we're not going. At least not now."

Before reason could contain her frustration, she stood up straight, a flare of righteous indignation making her appear taller. "My face was on one of those—" she sputtered inwardly over the right words-"flesh pedestals." Then she saw it, the sadness, the guilt. She caught it sometimes, when he didn't know that she was watching. But now. The Doctor didn't try to hide it now. She tried to temper her anger without making it obvious. "You'd better have a very good reason why I don't get to relax that away."

The Doctor sighed and reached into his inside coat pocket to pull out the sleeved psychic paper. "I've been putting something off," he admitted. He looked momentarily at the psychic paper and what it contained before taking the necessary steps to pass it to her. "I thought the Library had the answer but I was wrong."

Donna looked down at the psychic paper. Words appeared across its surface with small rounded letters, almost as if they were writing themselves. 'I don't know where I am.' She frowned at them as they vanished and replaced themselves with, 'Did I open the door?' She looked up at the Doctor staring back at her, sad and guilt-ridden with his hands in his pockets. "Where is this coming from?" she asked, "Who is sending it?" How long has he been putting it off?

"I don't know, but I intend to find out," he replied with a hidden resolve. His hands came out of his pockets again as he made adjustments to the T.A.R.D.I.S. controls. "The message's frequency has increased," he continued, "It's almost constant now." His eyes met hers again, "like it knows I'm coming."

"It sounds sad," Donna commented, almost not realizing she made her observation out loud. She immediately attempted to cover her statement by asking, "How are you going to find it?"

The Doctor's momentum began to gather speed as his hands refined settings to the instruments before him. "In order to leave a message on the psychic paper," he explained, "the source has to have a certain degree of telepathy." His tone even sounded more positive but then again he was in the process of demonstrating his cleverness. "It's transmitting a signal."

Donna brightened in response. "You're going to follow the signal." For a reply, he smiled at her.

~~~break~~~

The chair was not someplace she would ever describe as comfortable but now she could feel a metal grating press against her. Her eyes were still closed and her head leaned to the side resting lightly on a rail. She could hear a soft, familiar hum, a sound that soothed her. She couldn't decide if she should follow this train of increased awareness or tumble back into oblivion. Her lips were moving.

"I don't know where I am."

"You're in the T.A.R.D.I.S.," he called out to her. His voice was gruff but lilting with that hint of Scottish brogue. She was as close to home as she could imagine.

She lifted her head and slowly opened her eyes. "Did I open the door?" she asked. The words spilled from her automatically.

"No, Clara," the Doctor replied, his tone more scolding than reassuring, "the door is still closed." He stood at the center console, looking up at the pillar that married floor to ceiling. His hands laid flat against the panels and he flicked his gaze to her as he told her, "You are dreaming."

Clara focused on him as she began to master her thoughts. He met her eyes. The contact pulled her mind to the present. "So, I'm not really here," she said finally.

"For the sake of argument," he told her, "you are." He took slow steps towards her, keeping her focused on him like he was afraid she would drift away. "Physically, you are in that infernal chair outside the door." He gestured angrily to the T.A.R.D.I.S. door. "But your mind …" He stopped in front of her now, standing at the foot of the metal stairs where she sat, looking down at him. "Your mind is here with me."

"How is that possible?" she asked. Her voice sounded small. She felt small, like a child, no longer the equal she hoped to assert herself to be with the Doctor.

The Doctor sat on the steps with her, a handbreadth between them. "That drug, that hideous woman," he said, pausing as he asked her, "What did she call herself today?"

"Miriam," Clara replied. So the Doctor knew. He could hear what she was going through. She felt a little less alone knowing that although her captor told her that all time had stopped inside the T.A.R.D.I.S., the Doctor still went on. And he raged on now without pausing for even a breath.

"What 'Miriam's' pumping into you," he said with an audible sneer to the woman's name. He bounded up the stairs again, unable to keep still. "It has a side effect besides making you question your every thought and action."

Clara wasn't sure if what she was going through could be categorized as torture. She was in no physical pain. The woman, who first identified herself as Lilah, would come to her as a friend, sometimes someone in need of help. Using nothing but words and that persuasive drug forced into her veins, she would craft a scenario that would culminate in Clara needing to open a door.

Clara always seemed to fall for it at first. Her surroundings would just instantly become whatever ws suggested. She became immersed in Lilah's, or today, Miriam's situation. She had come close, Clara knew, but then reality would bleed in and she would remember. Sometimes just as she would reach for the door, she would hear something, a thought, a memory, not entirely her own and she found the strength to stop herself.

"What side effect?" she finally asked, wondering if it was the key to her coincidental clarity.

"Your mind has been broadened," the Doctor said moving his hands wide away from his head in an expanding gesture. "Many beings have the capacity of psychic communication." He turned and pointed at her now, making his final point. "This drug has set yours free."

She stared at him as the words began to sink in. She was dreaming but able to talk to the Doctor. He wasn't just a figment of her sub consciousness. The words he spoke were actually his words, not only what she imagined them to be. She felt a surge of hope. She could hear him and he could hear her back. They were actually talking to each other but … Her heart sank. "What good does that do me if the only one I can talk to is you?" she said with an unexpected edge of venom. "You're the one who needs to be saved."

"Me?!" the Doctor shouted indignantly. "You're the one who is being tortured."

"Only so that they can get to you!" she retorted. She wanted to yell more. She wanted to stand and scream and bang her fists against the railing but as the Doctor turned away she could see the dark cast of worry. He already blamed himself. He didn't need her to do it for him.

"You have been talking to me," the Doctor began quietly, "for some time now. I can hear you." He approached the stairs again but would not look up to meet her eyes. "It stands to reason that someone else could hear you."

"How?" Clara breathed. "I can only do this because of that drug and you," she paused. A wan smile stretched at the corners of her mouth. "Well, you're you."

He came and sat down next to her on the stairs. Without a thought, she leaned against him, her head fitting against his arm. The gesture was natural, something she just did to the nearness of him, but now, it felt cloudy, unreal. All part of a dream.

"The universe is vast," the Doctor said quietly. "With infinite possibilities. Has travel with me shown you that at least?"

In response, the echo of Clara's repeated cry rose around them. 'I don't know where I am.' 'I don't know where I am.'

Sounds of reality coming back to taunt her, she thought as she closed her eyes tight and turned her face into the Doctor's arm. She tried to imagine more comfort there than she would actually feel but her dream wouldn't work that way.

'I'm coming!' a man's voice called out following Clara's despairing plea.

"Did you hear that?" Clara asked. Her eyes opened and she sat up straight.

"I will if you want me to," the Doctor answered.

She turned to look up at him then. His choice of words seemed strange but it fit the workings of her dream. "Yes," she said breathlessly, holding back the cry of hope that threatened. "Yes, I want you to hear."

"I can hear it," he told her, watching for her reaction.

'I don't know where I am.'

'I'm coming.' The man's voice became more insistent with each repetition.

"You have to find him, Clara," the Doctor said. He got up from sitting next to her and stepped down the steps. He was sending her on her way.

"How?" she asked.

"The way you did before," he answered. "The way you found me."

"Dream."

~~~break~~~

Clara's head had lolled forward in her sleep. The unsteady movement startled her awake. She opened her eyes and the words of her constant mantra fell silent. She still sat in her chair, the straps bound tightly around her arms this time. But the room was different. She looked like she was on a stage. "Wow," she breathed, "I really don't know where I am."

"You're in an auditorium," a man's voice called out from the darkened seats.

Clara's heart began to beat at a thunderous pace. Someone was out in the darkness, someone she didn't know, someone who could help her. She choked back a quiet sob of relief. She strained to see him and at her will her wrists came free of the straps. Shielding her eyes from the bright stage lights, she was able to see him then. A man standing among the empty seats in the auditorium. He was really there. She needed to keep up the conversation. "I've never been here before," she said.

The man moved between the seats, unsure of where he should be. He smiled mildly. "I came here for a, uh," he replied, stumbling slightly as he searched for the right word. His smile deepened with embarrassment as he gave up and picked a word not quite true, "For a concert."

He was the portrait of the average man. Average height, average build, wearing a nondescript suit and sporting the early signs of a receding hairline. He looked like as accountant.

Oh well, beggars can't be choosers.

"This place must be important to you," Clara said. She needed to engage him, make him comfortable with her before launching into the 'I've contacted you psychically so that you can come rescue me from this evil organization who is drugging me so that I'll unwittingly open the door to my friend's time machine.' There was really no good way to ease into that.

The man's smile remained but she could almost sense a sadness shadow him for a moment. "Yeah, it was the last place I saw someone."

Someone he cared about. The man was grieving. She smiled back at him sympathetically. "I won't pry," she assured him. "My name is Clara Oswald."

"Phil," he replied. He now moved through the seats to make his way to the aisle. He was coming up to meet her. "What brings you here?" he asked.

"You, I suspect," Clara answered honestly.

"Me?" he replied slightly abashed as if she were trying to flirt with him. He was in the aisle now coming toward her. "But I've never met you before—wait." He stopped suddenly, a faint flash of recognition flickered across his face.

Echoes of voices filled the void of the auditorium. Their voices. Her plaintive cry of 'I don't know where I am,' followed closely by Phil's answer of 'I'm coming.'

Realizing the subconscious was hard at work, Clara looked across to Phil. This was not their first encounter in a dream. He knew it too.

"This is your dream," Clara told him.

"Dream…." He repeated. The realization hit him all at once. "I'm dreaming." Then he was gone.

Clara came out of her chair at his sudden disappearance. "Phil!" she called out. Her eyes frantically searched the auditorium before returning to the empty spot where he had just stood. The first thing someone usually does when they realize they are dreaming is wake up.

She began to sob, her tears blurring her vision as the auditorium faded away. Distantly she knew it would disappear. Without Phil's subconscious to keep projecting it, she couldn't stay. She didn't want to wake up. The waking world only held fear and tricks, lies and drugs. How many temptations would she have to overcome to open the T.A.R.D.I.S. door?

~~~break~~~

Phil Coulson jolted awake. He looked around the low lighting of his room. He wasn't surprised to see Agent Melinda May sitting in a darkened corner, watching him. His lips quirked into a wry smile as he inwardly cursed. He would be touched by her concern if he hadn't suspected her observation of him to be purely professional.

"Did you dream about the voice again?" she asked from the darkness.

He wiped his hands across his face and tried to focus on May as she rose to approach him. "I saw her this time," he said. "She told me her name : Clara Oswald."

He surprised her. "Do you know her?"

"I don't know," he replied. He shook his head slightly as he pictured Clara. "Even now that I'm awake, she doesn't seem at all familiar."

May recovered herself and returned to the part of the watchful agent. "We'll run her name, find out why you're dreaming about her," she said. She sat at the side of his bed as she had the night before. "Could she have been at TAHITI?"

Coulson's face flushed with boyish embarrassment at her scrutiny. "I don't think so," he said, more certain than the tone of his answer implied.

"She has to mean something," May reasoned. "If she's not someone from your past, maybe she's a representation of something your subconscious is trying to tell you."

Coulson rested his hands on his knees and shook his head again. "I don't think she's from my memory," he said, meeting May's eyes. "I think she needs my help."

They looked at each other for a long, nearly uncomfortable moment, until Coulson's face broke into a sheepish grin that forced may to smile in return. "What?" she finally asked.

He shrugged. "I was waiting for you to tell me how ridiculous that sounds."

May's expression softened further with deeper concern. "I don't think it's ridiculous at all," she said. "In fact, I believe that these dreams have a very fortunate side effect."

He chuckled quietly, each of them keeping the hushed tones of mid-night voices. "There's a fortunate side effect besides losing sleep?" he asked.

The seriousness returned. She took gentle hold of his hand and placed something hard and cold in it. She closed his fingers around it before releasing him. "When was the last time you had the urge to carve the walls?"

Coulson opened his hand to reveal the box cutter he had used nearly a week before to etch alien symbols into the walls of the Playground. He stared at the knife in wonder. "I had almost forgotten," he said.

"Whatever these dreams are doing to you," she said, "they have cancelled out the drive you shared with Garrett."

Coulson frowned and placed the knife on the bedside table. "You think it might be an outside source …" His voice trailed off. He didn't know if he could find the words to follow them.

"You believe Clara Oswald is real and that she needs help," May said, summing up his concerns. She stood then and offered Coulson her hand, either as a show of solidarity or simply to pull him out of bed. "I think it's time for us to find her."

next: SHIELD learns about Clara Oswald but they aren't the only ones interested. The Doctor and Donna arrive but the T.A.R.D.I.S. won't get any closer than a block away. And the Doctor tries being nice to Clara.


	3. Chapter 3

The woman called herself Ophelia.

Clara thought she had a sweet disposition and had proven herself an engaging companion for tea. Tea. Why was she having tea with this woman? She couldn't quite remember. They had been talking about the school and children and teaching. Was this an interview? Which one of them was being interviewed?

She really needed to pay better attention.

Ophelia had just finished with an anecdote about some boys on some playground. Bees may have been involved. Suddenly she stopped talking and looked pointedly at Clara.

"What?" Clara asked. A smile grew from the joke she must have been missing.

Ophelia looked confused. "Don't you think you should get that?" she asked, forcing politeness into her tone. "Someone is knocking at the door."

Clara turned and was surprised to see a door behind her. She heard the knocking now, soft and insistent. "Weird," she said, her smile growing sheepish, "I didn't hear that." She paused and yelled, "Come in!"

The knocking become louder.

"That won't work," Ophelia said.

Clara was standing now, though she couldn't remember the moment she got to her feet. Words played in her head. The voice was familiar but the words….the words were spoken for her. They came to her from a distance, like a recording, a memory.

'Brand new and ancient and the bluest blue—' Only the door mattered.

"But it's brown," Clara argued with the voice. She took a stumbling step towards the door and the knocking on the other side.

"What's brown?" Ophelia asked.

"The door."

'In your dreams it will still be there,' the voice in her head persisted.

"You have to open it to let them in," Ophelia insisted from behind her. In response the knocking grew in volume and intensity.

As Clara stretched her hand towards the door handle, a thought came to her distantly that she was beginning to not like Ophelia very much.

Clara's finger tips touched the metal of the door handle. She didn't know if it was brass or brushed nickel, but it was real and solid, and as she touched it, a new voice flared into existence in her mind.

'I found you. I found you in words like you knew I would.'

A woman's voice, not Ophelia's, someone she had never heard with traces of a Scottish lilt.

'That's why you told me the story. The brand new, ancient blue box.'

Clara had covered her ears with her hands now, not to hold back the voice but to keep it in, to keep it away from Ophelia and the pounding at the door. The words had been spoken so long ago to …him. HIM. The Doctor, in the T.A.R.D.I.S.

Ophelia was by her side now grabbing her by the shoulders to shake her. "What is it saying to you!?"

Ophelia….Miriam….Lilah. The woman who had taken her demanded to know the words spoken in her head. Without realizing it, she complied, repeating out loud what the Scottish voice was saying.

"Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue."

#####

Phil Coulson entered the small dark lab to find Skye in front of an array of various computer screens. She sat precariously perched at the edge of a stool and only looked up briefly to confirm her visitor.

"You found something?" Coulson asked, taking position behind her so that he could view the screens.

"Once I knew where to look," Skye answered, "I found out a lot." Her hand shifted over the keyboards and the images on the screens changed. "Clara Oswald, school teacher at Coal Hill Secondary School. She disappeared from their parking lot five days ago."

Coulson watched as the familiar image of a woman appeared on the black and white feed. She walked purposefully towards a motorbike leaning in a small space. Before she reached it, the feed cut out unexpectedly. "The picture is interrupted for exactly 27 seconds," Skye explained, "and then—" The image resolved onto the screen again. The motorbike was still there, a helmet was resting on the pavement. Clara Oswald was gone.

"So," Skye said turning to face him. Her words became more precisely pointed. "What aren't you telling me?"

Coulson smiled weakly at her. He toyed briefly with the thought of continued evasiveness but he couldn't. He shared so much with her. He had to be honest. Besides, he was still reeling from seeing the confirmed image of Clara Oswald on the British CCT. On the adjacent screen was a close up picture. The same round, elfish face with large dark eyes that had looked at him from the stage in the Portland auditorium. She was a real person. "I've been seeing her in my dreams," he said.

Skye arched her eyebrow and regarded him with ironic surprise. "The honest approach?" she said. "I didn't expect that."

Coulson leaned on the desk, his gaze still fixated on the screen. "This doesn't have a security clearance level," he said.

"Not with SHIELD, at least," she remarked wryly.

"What do you mean?" Coulson asked. Skye had his full attention now.

Pressing a few more keys, the CCT screen shot of the school parking lot was replaced another close-up picture of Clara Oswald with the words U.N.I.T. Priority One. "We're not the only ones looking for her," Skye replied. "What is U.N.I.T.?"

Coulson straightened, folding his arms in front of him. "Unified Intelligence Task Force," he said. "I've never dealt with them. Director Fury had a contact. Stewart, I think was her name."

"Are you talking about U.N.I.T.?" a woman's voice called from the doorway. Jemma Simmons stood with hopeful expectation, waiting for some unspoken invitation.

Skye gave her a casual beckoning of her hand to show that she had asked her to come. Simmons took two steps into the room and leaned her back against the wall.

"What do you know about them?" Coulson asked.

Simmons became animated. Though she wasn't exactly smiling, she beamed enthusiasm. "They have many of the responsibilities that SHIELD has," she said, "but they tend to lean to more, uh, grander scales."

"Grander?" Coulson asked.

Her eyes flew wide as she realized that what she said might be disparaging. "Did I say grander?" she flustered. "I meant bigger." She flinched at her new word choice.

Coulson stood and folded his arms in front of his chest.

Simmons released a pent-up, fluttery sigh. "I meant alien."

Skye smiled, watching her friend squirm. "With what happened in New York and what we've been dealing with lately, they might have to share the spotlight." Her gaze had shifted to the screens in front of her and then flicked back as a thought occurred to her. "I don't suppose they have their own Avengers."

"Nothing like that," Simmons admitted, answering Skye while carefully watching Coulson for any reaction. "Though they do have their own army and if you believe the rumors, an alien ally."

"What kind of alien ally?" Coulson asked, infinitely more interested than before.

"Like the Asgard, he looks like us," Simmons answered. "He's reported to be vastly intelligent. They call him the Doctor."

If she had been expecting a reaction or any subtle sign of recognition, they gave her neither.

"That still doesn't explain why they would prioritize the finding of this school teacher," Skye said redirecting the discussion back to its original intent. "Or why our fearless leader has been dreaming about her."

Coulson braced himself for any and all polite but pointed inquiries of him dreaming about a woman. Simmons looked at him with consideration. "What does she do in the dreams?" she asked earnestly.  
"Does she say anything?"

"Every dream begins with her saying that she doesn't know where she is," Coulson explained. He looked back at one of the screens that held Clara's image, all thought directed inward. "I only just learned her name."

"How can we find her if she can't tell us where to look?" Skye asked. From the footage they could see that she had been taken but by whom and the reasoning behind it was just out of reach.

"Perhaps she has some sort of technology that gives her this ability to communicate through the dream state," Simmons reasoned, her expression brightened at the thought of new devices.

Skye met her hopeful gaze frowning. "Yeah, but why Coulson?" she asked. "Does she even know who you are?"

Coulson shook his head. "I don't think so."

"TAHITI?" Simmons queried.

Skye became more doubtful. "I got the same drug and I'm not dreaming about British school teachers."

"That wasn't the only thing that happened to me at TAHITI," Coulson said softly. Skye and Simmons lapsed into an uncomfortable silence while he considered the truth of his statement. For months after he emerged from that facility he remembered only warm beaches and gentle soothing care. 'It's a magical place,' he would say automatically whenever he was asked about it. He had been programmed to say that. His brain had been altered so that he believed it. Was Clara Oswald's brain being manipulated?

"She's calling for help," he said suddenly. He caught Skye's gaze. "She either is or has contact with something very important for U.N.I.T. to be looking for her."

"But they don't know where she is either," Skye added finishing his thought.

"At this point," he said with finality, "we need to assume that I'm the only one who can hear her."

Behind him, Simmons brightened suddenly. "Sir, I may have an idea."

######

Donna Noble had had bumpy rides on the T.A.R.D.I.S. before but this time she could sense the struggle and could see it on the Doctor's face. He and the time machine were at odds about where they wanted to go.

"She doesn't want to go," he said as he pumped one of the levers on the console.

"You could have fooled me," Donna remarked crossly, her words soaked in sarcasm.

He frowned at her disapprovingly and she angrily glared back at him. The T.A.R.D.I.S. lurched once more throwing them both to the metal grated floor.

Then everything was still.

The Doctor roused himself first. "Donna," he called, "are you alright?"

"Peachy," she replied. Though hidden from view on the other side of the console he could hear her move to get up.

Holding onto the console he climbed to his feet. He reached into his breast pocket and fished out his glasses to 'clearly' discern their destination and result of their inner vortex struggle.

Donna emerged from the other side, pulling her fingers through her disheveled hair and looking genuinely unhappy. "Well," she asked continuing to pull herself together, "are we where we're supposed to be?"

The Doctor felt himself smile at her very appropriate question as he concentrated on the answer. "Sort of," he replied without looking away from the instrument readings.

"Sort of," she echoed with disdain. She walked around the rotation of the T.A.R.D.I.S. to reach the Doctor's side. "Where are we?"

"In a field," he answered. "Twelve miles outside of Sheffield, England in the year 2014."

Of all of the elements of his description, the one that she took the most offense was, "A field?"

The Doctor stepped back from the console with his arms wrapped around his spare frame. He regarded both Donna and the readings with a thoughtful frown. "It was as close as the T.A.R.D.I.S. was willing to bring us," he concluded.

"How close is that?" she asked.

"A little over a kilometer from the source of the signal," he answered before rounding on a different panel of controls, his eyes trained on a screen in front of him.

She took a couple of tentative steps in his wake. "You can still pick up the signal?" she asked, realizing as the words came out how stupid the question was.

With the flip of a switch came her answer. The words that had traced themselves across psychic paper now had a voice. A frightened, trembling lost voice.

"I don't know where I am."

"Doctor," Donna remarked softly, her voice rich with compassion, "It's a woman's voice."

"It's a trap," the Doctor said coldly. He slammed his fist on the switch to extinguish the voice.

Donna watched him, waiting for an explanation.

He had stepped back from the controls again. He held a dark fury behind his affected glasses. "It's a tachyon cage," he said, "designed specifically to hold the T.A.R.D.I.S."

"That's why we landed in a field," Donna concluded, cautious of his sudden shift in mood. She had seen it before, this change. This glorious man could be full of joy and hope and wonder one moment but when sordid truths revealed themselves the darkness came without warning. The Oncoming Storm.

The glasses came off. The movement was so fluid that she didn't see them go, only their absence. His long fingers turned a dial and flipped a switch. Although he didn't acknowledge Donna's presence, his every action dared her to counter him. This realization was reflected in her question. "What do you think you're doing?"

"We're getting out of here," he answered. His hand reached for the final handle that would engage the T.A.R.D.I.S. engines.

Donna stepped in front of him, breaking his contact with the console. "So, you're just going to leave her here?" she accused.

His face was devoid of all emotion like he had swallowed it all away. He had become one of the most frightening things she had ever seen, like in Pompeii. "It's a trap," he repeated. "The signal is just the bait."

"I heard you the first time," she said fearlessly placing the whole of her form between him and their means of escape. "None of that means that the voice isn't real."

She saw a flicker of regret and compassion before he forced those feelings down into the void. He wanted her to challenge him. "It doesn't matter," he said, turning away from her. "I can't risk the T.A.R.D.I.S."

A switch on the console began to flash rapidly and Donna couldn't deny the compulsion to turn it. The moment her fingers made contact, the voice filled their ears.

"I don't know where I am."

Donna pointed at the ceiling as if that were the origin of the voice. "You've been getting this message for years," she said, advancing on him. "You are closer than you've ever been to the truth."

Without consciously realizing it, the Doctor took a step back from her. This only fueled her.

"I know why you're angry," she said over the recording of the plea. "They knew exactly what would get to you. The frightened damsel in distress. They hit you where you live."

He tried to direct his anger at Donna but his heartless glare only served to show that she was getting through to him.

"You always like showing off how clever you are." Her voice became softer as she brought her point home. "Instead of running away to avoid the trap, why don't you avoid the trap and rescue the girl anyway."

#######

Clara's head lolled to the side to rest uncomfortably against the railing of the metal stairs. She tried to pull her eyes open but she found the effort more difficult than she thought she could overcome. Without conscious thought, her lips formed the words of her existence. "I don't know where I am."

"You're with me, Clara," the Doctor called out to her in a voice she had believed lost to her. "Where you should be. My impossible girl."

Her eyes come open then. All desire to remain asleep vanished at the sound of the Doctor's voice. He stood at the console, his arms and legs moving in that jerky new-born foal way as if his limbs couldn't decide what they wanted to do first. Still unsure of her reality, the second half of her captivity speech came unbidden. "Did I open the door?"

"Of course not," the Doctor replied in his pre-Trenzalore face, youthful, beaming with hope, "and for that reason we should celebrate." He clapped his oversized, flapping hands for emphasis, looking for all the world like a beautiful madman in a twelve-year-old body. "Tell me anything you want to do. Anywhere you want to go. Just name it and I'll make it happen."

Her tears began to push at her eyes, scraping her throat raw. This wasn't right. "Oh, God," she cried. Her hands covered her face. "I did open the door."

The Doctor took three long strides to reach her and try to pull her hands away. "Oh, no, Clara. I swear. You didn't open the door. The door is still closed." He stroked her hair and kissed her forehead like an adoring father.

She looked at him miserably. Enough time had passed she had let go of her longing to see this form of her friend. Only two explanations fit with what she was seeing. One: she had lost all sense of reality. She communicated to him through dreams. Maybe her desire to go home had gone too far. The second possibility terrified her for its unlikeliness . "Then why?" she asked.

"Why what?" he asked back. He had clasped her hands between his.

She pulled her hands back and buried her face in them again. Their situation must be truly dire if he would resort to this. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

The Doctor quieted at that. He stood up and regarded her, scratching the back of his head as he had in his previous form. "Because I can be," he replied and added more quietly, "because sometimes I'm not."

"But it's not how it should be," she cried, her voice muffled behind her hands. "It scares me."

"I …" he began. As the confidence in his words faltered the tone of his voice lowered, "…thought you would like this face better."

"It's not you, not anymore," she sobbed. She seemed to collapse in upon herself not willing to look at the face of her best friend. "I'm sorry."

Clara could hear him crouch in front of her. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was being ridiculous. She couldn't help it. Maybe in her dreams she lacked that emotional filter that held her back. If the Doctor was able to change his appearance like this in the waking world, she would tease him about it, tell him that he was being sentimental. But here, now, she shattered at the magnitude of this act of kindness. The warmth of his hand rested on her head. "Why are you sorry?" he asked in a voice so soft, she couldn't tell for certain he spoke.

The warmth of his question and the gentleness of his touch tore a sob of truth from her. "Because I made you think I wanted you to change," she cried with sullen effort. Would she have been able to hide her guilt if she were not dreaming?

The Doctor's hands moved to pull at her hands again. "You didn't make me do anything," he said, a dark Scottish brogue adding a sudden lyrical quality to his voice. "Look at me."

She faced him at once. The crinkled face, the grey hair, the dark coat with a lining of red. He was as he should be. Her hands came free of his at once as she flung herself to him. Her arms came around him as he awkwardly stepped away to brace himself from her crushing embrace.

The Doctor stumbled backward slightly. "I'm still not the hugging type," he said chidingly so different from the face he shed only moments before.

Clara smiled broadly as the inexplicable weight of guilt lifted away. She buried her face into his shoulder and protested, "You said anything I wanted to do."

She couldn't see him smile but she knew it was there, lurking in his eyes if not evident on the rest of his face. "I did, didn't I," he murmured.

She wouldn't let him go. She thought to ease her grip but she couldn't even manage that small effort. She wanted this to be real but even with the tightening of her arms and the near burrowing into his chest, she couldn't shake the illusory insubstantial sensation of the dream.

She had to fix this. She was the only one who could. She turned her head to tell him how. "His name is Phil."


	4. Chapter 4

Clara opened her eyes and found herself sitting on the floor in a dimly lit hallway. The words, 'Did I open the door?' faded on her lips before she brought voice to them. She looked around her to take stock of her unfamiliar surroundings. The floor beneath her was hard, covered only in the thin utilitarian carpet found in government institutions or facilities. Not for comfort or aesthetics just to cover the concrete underneath. She had the sense that she was underground. Though she could see windows a distance away from her, she didn't think they offered a view of the outside. She heard a voice, muffled and distant calling out fearfully. She felt a touch of gratitude that for the first time, it wasn't her own.

She pulled herself to her feet and took a couple of steps when she heard the voice again, this time with clarity. "Please, just let me die."

She knew that she was in a dream but it wasn't hers. "Phil?" she called and hastened her steps.

"Clara, wait," a voice called from behind. She halted.

She turned to find Phil standing there in his nondescript suit looking for all the world like he should be selling her insurance.

"Please," he said softly, an echo of the cry coming from down the hall. "I don't want you to see."

"That's you…?" Clara asked. Her face flushed with concern. The voice was begging to die.

He smiled with awkward embarrassment. "It may be my dream," he said, "but I don't get to pick which one I have."

"What's happening to you?" she asked, taking her first step away from the window that would answer her question.

Phil became more businesslike closing off her worry for him. "Our time is short, Clara," he directed, "I need to get as much information from you as I can so that I can find you." He sighed and folded his arms across his chest "Have you seen any of your captors?"

Clara frowned at him though she knew he was right. Either of them could wake up without warning at anytime. "There have been guards, I guess you could call them," she said. "They're the ones who man handle me but I never see their faces. Most of the time a woman talks to me, but each time she gives me a different name."

Phil watched her carefully but didn't meet her eyes. He took in details but his thoughts had turned inward. "What names?" he asked. "They could be helpful."

Trying to remember something while dreaming was like juggling balloons. It should be simple because you are right there in your own thoughts but the thoughts weren't always where she expected them to be. She couldn't remember them in the order she had heard them but they almost drifted to her on their own. "Ophelia, um and Miriam, one time," she answered. The last one seemed slippery and hard to hold onto. "And Leona. That's all I can remember." As she said them she watched Phil repeat each one in turn. He almost seemed to be talking to someone else, relaying the information to someone outside the dream. "Why are you repeating me?"

The awkward embarrassed smile returned to his face and he shoved his hands into his pockets. She couldn't help feeling comforted at this boyish gesture. "To help myself remember," he replied with just enough discomfort to make her think his answer wasn't entirely true. He must have realized this too since he added. "Plus, I am recording my sleep."

That thought was absurd. What would be the purpose of recording his sleep when he couldn't record his dreams? Unless….. These weren't normal dreams. She had a terrifying thought, "You don't think she can hear me, do you?"

His brow creased with worry over her sudden fear. "Do you normally talk in your sleep?" he asked.

"Do you?"

Phil shook his head and grimaced. His hands came out of his pockets as he lifted them in a stalling motion. "Let's try to focus," he instructed. "What is she trying to get you to do? You mentioned—"

"The door," Clara answered automatically. She had become suddenly wooden as if the mention of her confinement had put her in a trance. She said one of her two most often uttered phrases. "Did I open the door?"

Phil had reached forward to catch Clara by the arm and pull her back into the moment with him. She could see him, like looking through filmy glass but she could sense she was about to wake up and drifting further out of the dream. She could hear him calling out to her, imagine feeling his hand take hers. "What door? Clara, what door?"

With a snap, her reality reasserted itself and she was back in the dream with Phil holding her hand. "Phil?"

"What door, Clara?" he asked again.

"The T.A.R.D.I.S."

DW/AOS DW/AOS

Phil's eyes popped open as he returned headlong into consciousness. The face of Jemma Simmons filled his view. "I knew it," she declared with a note of triumph. "Oh, Fitz isn't going to believe this. The T.A.R.D.I.S." Her hands moved in a frenzied, excited motion as she removed the electrode pads from Coulson's head, so that he could sit up.

Pulling himself to a sitting position, he looked through the glass door to see Agents May and Skye. May stood with her usual pose of stoicism, having supervised the entire procedure. Undoubtably she had figured out the setting of his dream. He wondered for a moment if she had given any sort of explanation to the others. Skye sat in front of a computer screen, frowning deeply at what she was viewing.

"Were those names any help at all?" Coulson asked, directing his question at Skye.

She grimaced slightly then schooled her face back into a neutral expression. "I was able to determine a connection between the three names pointing to one person," she answered.

He had caught the quick change in her demeanor and knew immediately that she had found something and that it wasn't good. "Who?" He stood now, just on the other side of the glass.

She read the names off of her screen. "Leona Hiss, Merriam Drew and Ophelia Skarssian." Skye met his eyes as she relayed the rest. "Three aliases associated to a woman who calls herself Madame Hydra."

Coulson said nothing but his fists clenched and he turned back to Simmons. "What is the T.A.R.D.I.S.?" he asked her.

She almost wilted in the discomfort of attention. "All I know is rumor and conspiracy theories," she said, immediately adding a disclaimer to her statement, "but it's supposed to be a time machine. The letters of its name stand for 'Time And Relative Dimensions In Space'. It is piloted by the Doctor. A ship that travels through space and time."

Skye's grimace returned and this time she did nothing to get rid of it. "If such a thing like that can actually exist, can you imagine what would happen if it was in the hands of Hydra?"

Coulson had a question ready to launch at Agent May but he discovered that she was no longer present. She had slipped away only a moment before. He turned to Simmons again. "You mentioned the Doctor before," he said, prompting her.

Simmons nodded. She had busied her hands with the task of organizing the wires for storage so any excitement she might have shown had toned down. "I explained that he is the alien working with U.N.I.T." she replied. "One of the reasons that U.N.I.T. formed was to deal with him. It's possible that since Clara Oswald has access to the T.A.R.D.I.S., she might be his companion."

"Companion?" Skye interjected. She smirked. "What kind of companion?"

"Not that kind," a male voice answered. Fitz had entered the conversation and Agent May followed close on his heels, like a silent shadow. She had left the room to get him, perhaps believing that he could contribute something useful. He didn't look so convinced. He looked uncomfortable and his sudden arrival had a similar dampening effect on Simmons' attitude.

Fitz visibly squirmed as all attention reverted to him. His hands twitched nervously in front of him and he focused on the floor. "The Doctor is highly, uh, uh, uh." He tapped the sides of his head searching for the right word.

"Superior," Simmons supplied.

"Intelligent," Fitz finished, ignoring her input. "They theorize that the Doctor takes a human companion with him to, uh, uh, get a fresh…." He paused and deliberately did not look to Simmons. She kept quiet and the word came to him on its own. "Perspective."

Coulson nodded, taking in this new information. He thought of the opportunity Clara had to travel with an intelligent alien. Of the aliens he had dealt with, how many would he want to travel with? Would Lady Sif ever consider him worthy of such an offer? "Can the T.A.R.D.I.S. be tracked?" he asked.

At this, Fitz risked a glance to Simmons, who mirrored his lost expression. "I suppose," Simmons ventured, "U.N.I.T. may have a way—"

"Only when it's in, uh, uh," Fitz stammered. He wiped his hand across his brow, frustrated by the fact that he had interrupted Simmons but now couldn't finish his sentence. He tried again. "When it's moving." They weren't the words he wanted to use but he expressed his point.

Simmons deflated. "If Hydra has it, it's probably not running," she said. She looked at a fixed point on the floor as she organized her thoughts. "That's why they have Clara. They can't even get inside."

"And the T.A.R.D.I.S. itself can't escape," Coulson added. He joined her in speculation. "What would they need to hold it in place?"

"A tachyon cage," Fitz said.

Simmons smiled triumphantly. "That is something that can be traced."

# * #

Clara's head lolled forward. She felt her lips moving and thought she had just said something but her world was fuzzy and incoherent. She tried to focus on the sounds in front of her. A voice, the Doctor's voice.

"Clara, for the last time," he said. His Scottish brogue had peppered his speech with a gruff impatience. "You did not open the door."

A soft snap followed by a sudden sting to her left ear opened Clara's eyes and brought her full attention to the Doctor's face. "Ow, Doctor?"

He stood up and looked down at her with a frown. "Finally with me?"

Clara found herself sitting on the steel-grated steps aboard the T.A.R.D.I.S. where she usually materialized in the drug-induced dreams of her captivity. She rubbed at her ear. "Did you just swat my ear?" she asked with sullen confusion.

The Doctor had turned towards the central console and away from her. "You were stuck in a loop," he explained. "I had to snap you out of it."

With the help of the handrail, Clara pulled herself to her feet and followed him. "I spoke with Phil," she said.

"Well, that's marvelous," the Doctor remarked, throwing his hands up to show how very little he actually cared. "I'm glad that the two of you are getting on." He turned a couple of knobs and flipped a switch, heaping sarcasm on top of his words. None of the mechanics actually worked. The T.A.R.D.I.S. was essentially frozen in the dream as it was in reality. "Maybe when this is all over, you can go out for coffee."

Clara might have thought that he had put on a show of jealousy but her focus remained on the dream she had had before. "I think there is something wrong with him," she said.

The Doctor continued his routine of flippant remarks and general avoidance. "We can't all be perfect," he said rounding another bend of the control column to keep his distance from Clara. "He is an American after all."

Clara furrowed her brow at that last comment. She couldn't remember what she had told him of Phil. "Did I mention-?"

Suddenly the Doctor pulled himself into her view, causing her to pull up short. "Shut up for a minute," he directed in a rapid expulsion of words. "I have to tell you something." His face came very close to hers so that he filled her field of vision. "Someone is going to contact you while you're awake."

"Phil?" she asked, coming to her only logical conclusion.

"No! Not Phil," he shouted in frustration as he turned on his heel away from her. "He's only just beginning to piece this together." He leaned across the controls towards her to emphasize his point. "ME."

Clara stuttered mentally. "Wait….what?"

He rolled his eyes reflexively and pointed at himself. "Me, Clara. It's me." He then said the words slowly. "I am going to contact you. Pay attention."

She wondered idly if her thoughts had slowed because of her dreamstate. She still didn't understand. "But you're talking to me now," she said dumbly. As soon as the words came out she realized how stupid she sounded. "Sorry," she muttered. "You were saying."

The Doctor came around to her again and took her hand in his. Even though she couldn't feel the warmth, she understood his need to connect with her. She met his eyes and his expression softened. "One of my previous forms," he explained gently. He clapped his other hand over the top of their joined hands, a fatherly gesture she had seen him do before. "You've met him, but he hasn't met you. Now, this is important—"

Without warning Clara's mind made the connections and went a step beyond to a realization that explained every bit of the Doctor's odd behavior. "You remember this," she stated, interrupting him.

He tugged on her hand to try to snap her attention back to his direction. "Stop talking and listen to me," he demanded, adding an extra edge of gruffness to his rapid voice. "This is important. You need to limit your time with my younger self." Clara's brow furrowed and her lips pressed together in a tight line. She knew when he tried to roll over her and she knew he could see it on her face but he continued to push his words out. "There are clues to his future he may piece together if he sees you for too long so you will need to—"

"You've been through all this already," she interrupted again, since he showed no willingness to let her question him. "Through your younger self?"

The Doctor pushed ahead, ignoring her. "You will need to insist you speak with Donna," he instructed.

Clara blinked. This had derailed her slightly. "Donna?"

He released her hands throwing his in the air and turning away from her with mock exasperation. "Is there so much space in your head that there is an echo?"

Clara sighed heavily and folded her arms across her chest. She hated when he played the ignorant card on her. She had to show him how much she understood. "Your younger self is going to contact me while I'm awake and strapped to that chair out there and when he does, I'm supposed to tell him that I can't talk to him. I have to talk to Donna."

He leaned his arms against the console and smiled across at her. "Miracles do happen," he declared. "You were listening."

"You know what's going to happen," she said again hoping that he wouldn't deflect her statements again. "You've seen this through his eyes. You know what I'm going to do."

He stepped away from the console, turning away from her again. "Time can be rewritten," he said. "You know that. This is not a fixed point." He rounded the curve coming towards her. While his hand stayed in contact with the controls, his eyes remained on the floor and not on her. "It is in flux right now. You could open your eyes and do the exact opposite of what I remember."

Her arms wrapped more tightly around herself as if she suddenly felt a chill. She found her eyes drawn to the same spot on the floor that caught the Doctor's attention. "How do we get out of this?" she asked. "Surely you know."

With this, their eyes met and she could tell that he didn't want to say these words. "You must do exactly as you are told."

She considered his instruction then asked, "What about Phil?"

The Doctor frowned. "What about him?"

All through this odd exchange she had not let go of her concern. She could still hear his pleas from before, his voice begging to die. "You know what's wrong with him," she said.

The Doctor sighed softly and nodded. "Yes."


End file.
